Florin Mitroi was born in the south-western part of Romania, in Craiova, in 1938. He lived and worked in the country's capital, Bucharest, until he died in 2002 at the age of 64.
Read MoreMitroi received his BA in painting from the Nicolae Grigorescu Institute of Fine Arts, Bucharest, in 1961. This university in particular, and teaching in general, have been a constant in Mitroi’s life: he enrolled as a student in 1955, received a job as an assistant in 1961 and in 1992 he finally became a professor, a role he carried out until his final days. Some of the best-known Romanian artists active today were his students.
Florin Mitroi was a passionate teacher, but a reserved individual. His role in the arts school was well known by the local scene, but few knew his art too-he had only one solo exhibition during his lifetime, in 1993 at Catacomba in Bucharest. Only after his death did it become apparent how productive he had actually been.
Mitroi’s body of work seems very organised both in terms of medium as well as subject of representation. It consists mostly of paintings and drawings, as well as zinc cut outs of some of his usual graphic elements. He was very interested in the human figure and produced mainly portraits with an illustrative character, iconographic even: strong dark lines construct the faces and heads, which are usually bigger than the bodies, set on dense monochrome backgrounds.
Text courtesy Esther Schipper.
